After pregame purge, Miles provides gritty minutes

West Virginia coach Bob Huggins talks with senior guard Daxter Miles Jr. (4) during Saturday’s 89-51 win over Kansas State in Morgantown

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Daxter Miles left the pregame shoot-around, found a trash can behind the bench and started puking.

If this was West Virginia purging its recent demons, Bob Huggins approved.

“That’s good for him. That’s a character-builder,” the coach said. “I kind of like watching that.”

He sure liked watching his team destroy Kansas State 89-51, ending a three-game losing streak.

Fresh off a week in which Miles was too sick to practice — much less travel to Iowa State for Wednesday night’s debacle — the senior produced 25 useful minutes: Seven points, four assists, two rebounds and disruptive defense that held K-State’s guards to 2-of-11 shooting

“I made up my mind after the Iowa State game, I was going to play,” Miles said.

Still, Huggins wasn’t sure what he’d get, considering Miles “hadn’t taken a rep since the Kentucky game” last Saturday. Compounding matters was fellow guard Beetle Bolden emerging Friday from four hours receiving IVs at the hospital.

“I just couldn’t move, didn’t have a lot of strength,” Bolden said. “I was weak all over.”

Still, Bolden told his West Virginia coaches “I’m good to go,” and made his first career start. Fatigued from playing 18 minutes in the first half, Bolden gave way after the break when Miles played 16 minutes.

Brown bottoms out

How atypical was Barry Brown’s one-point day? Only once in 90 career games had the Wildcats guard been held without a basket. That occurred early during his freshman season, on Nov. 24, 2015, in an 80-70 loss to North Carolina.

“He was playing as well as anybody in the league and the country, but he lost a little bit of confidence,” said Kansas State coach Bruce Weber.

Notes, numbers, etc.

— Sagaba Konate’s 19 points were one off the career-best 20 he scored against Long Beach State on Nov. 20.

—Jevon Carter came in averaging 6.6 assists and handed out 11, one shy of his career high. His plus/minus of 30 matched Konate for the team lead Saturday.

— Teddy Allen’s four field goals vs. K-State were one more than he produced in the previous five games combined (3-of-20 shooting).

— West Virginia sank 23-of-24 at the foul line, the highest percentage ever for a Mountaineers team in a game with more than 13 attempts.

Quotable

“We’ve still got a shot. We’re still in this.” — Beetle Bolden on his team’s Big 12 chances as they sit one game behind Kansas and Texas Tech

“We didn’t have a chance to win that Iowa State game from the tip. We just laid it down from the very beginning. But today we got back to being us.” — West Virginia’s Teddy Allen

“JC really wants to win. And every time we were in the huddle, he said ‘Hey, we’ve go to believe.’ I think he wanted to get other people involved. He turned down shots he normally takes.” — Huggins on Carter’s pass-first approach after scoring six points

Allan Taylor

Allan Taylor joined MetroNews in August 2012, following 18 years of newspaper, magazine and multimedia work as an SEC columnist, sports editor, managing editor, news reporter and media consultant. He added the role of editor of The Dominion Post in July 2018.